How to choose kitchen cabinets and use counter space wisely

Selecting cabinets is one of the key decisions you will make in your kitchen. Here we serve up our top tips 

Displaying everything a cabinet can possibly do for you in open and blind storage. The cabinet end shelving and handle-free design reads as furniture and a room division than leads seamlessly to an open plan living space. Life Kitchens (UK).

Whether you have 4 sq m or 12 sq m, anchoring cabinets will determine the character, flow, the nature of storage and the availability of counter space in your new or renovated kitchen. Together with flooring and countertops, they are the most important material decision you will make.

Their scale, assemblage and positioning are the supporting essentials around which everything else will sit onto and into, and traffic will be guided by those monolithic groups.

Designer-aided interactive CAD design using extant features of your home will ensure that your kitchen units are not rudely fracturing the golden triangle or blocking sight-lines in wall-hung runs which can turn even a single galley into a choking canyon. The relationship of the kitchen area to the wider living-space has become a complex issue in open and broken-plan kitchen/family rooms.Take professional design advice.

As you proceed, cook it all up with the very best of your seasoned trades.

Two storage walls one in furnished style with a super-sized island makes stunning us of a corner situation. Siematic, arenakitchens.com (Ireland).

WHAT LIES BENEATH?

We’re wildly mixing up wood, gloss and metals in our 2021 kitchens. Door and counters form the aesthetic finial flourish — but good cabinet quality comes first. Choose dense, strong carcasses of 15mm to 18mm thickness, the structural boxes that will screw together into our kitchen.

Flipping original base and wall units? Look for damage to the ABS of the front edges of the cabinets, kickboards and shelving, which can look shabby and ingest moisture, causing them to swell.

Melamine-faced chipboard (MFC), and denser medium density fibreboard (MDF) are relatively cheap and once sealed well — strong and durable. The edging in new ABS should be between 1.3mm and 2mm thick, a good sign of quality. MDF can be bought in timber face if you can’t afford solid wood which really requires a degree of engineering to avoid warping. Backboards should be stout and at least 8mm thick.

Avoid 3mm miseries that will bow the first time you shove them with a tower of pans. For something different, investigate plywood, which can also be formed into cabinets and doors. For fly ply ideas using Ikea (Metod) base and wall cabinets go to plykea.com.

FLAT-PACKED?

Flat-packed or pre-assembled? If there’s little difference in the price (expect in the area of €40-€50 for a larger cabinet); ready-to-go boxes could save you a lot of time and curses, especially if you’re installing the kitchen yourself.

STANDARD SIZINGS

Going off-piste in terms of sizings strays into bespoke cabinet making and costs more. Save these for really special pieces or necessary inclusions like height adaptable work tops for a wheelchair for example. Base carcasses usually measure 720mm in height (we can play around with plinths and legs to tickle this up to 900mm or level an uneven floor).

The counter will add around 20cm-40mm, depending on your choice. In a truly made-to-measure kitchen, you can really set the counter height to suit your body.

Widths for cabinets bought off the shelf are generally 150mm, 300mm, 350mm, 400mm, 450mm, 500mm, 600mm, 800mm, 900mm, 1000mm, and 1200mm, depending on supplier. Most counters are 60cm wide, a reasonable arm’s reach and a match to appliance depths.

Most plain base and wall cabinets will offer 3mm deep shelf supports for a choice of levels. A service-void set in the back panel for pipes and cables (65mm would be typical) is a practical,

Standalone pantries are ideal for that accrued free-standing look that can easily soften a fitted kitchen, Neptune Kitchens.

useful touch.

GOING UP

Isolated runs of deep wall cabinets are being used with greater discretion in many new kitchens. That said, a whole wall given over to floor-to-superb-ceiling storage (sans most counter but including your double oven) can aesthetically liberate the rest of the space, whether you like 18th-century panelling or German slab styles.

Even smaller kitchen can enjoy impressive storage walls, floor cabinets married to large vertical pantry cupboards and airy, open shelving rather than acres of interrupting hanging cabinetry.

Thirty-centimetre deep wall cabinets are recessed to allow you to lean into any counter below. We really need at least 1.2m of worktop in any kitchen.

If you do want wall units, taking wall-hung/partially counter supported units right to the ceiling (crown moulding is classic) can create storage for lesser-used pieces — or as display for celebration ware.

Ask for options in large cabinets and top boxes. Counter-standing wall cabinets can look somewhat clunky in today’s minimalist kitchens, shorn of visual stutter more inclined towards that fascinating float.

PLAY WITH LAY

Using online software tools – (many basic versions are completely free including a 3D stroll). Start roughly setting out, segregating working areas and maximising storage.

That bald sketch can later inform a deeper dive into runs of cabinets, electrical positions, island or peninsula with a dedicated designer. B&Q is one of many firms offering these useful amateur CAD tools, diy.com/kitchenvisualiser

Deep drawers take the place of traditional 60cm cupboards on the island in this sleek blend of traditional and new in handled white cabinets by Right Price Kitchens, rightpricekitchens.ie

How much blind storage do you need? How much uninterrupted working counter?

What you expect in terms of architectural flourishes? Have you speciality cabinets for say wine storage in mind? If you can’t articulate the dream; tear and pin images for the sit-down.

Keep in mind when changing out your kitchen - preserving the plumbing and other services in their current positions will save money. Still, don’t skewer a change that will improve the ergonomics of the space. To be current, think of a non-culinary look that melts into the dining area.

SPECIALTY CABINETS

Corner cabinets have to deal with a sharp return. You can opt for a straight, blind corner, with a reach into a yawning space behind a door, or two doors shielding an L-shaped unit. The interior fittings (liners, soft close mechanisms, rails and shelving) can seriously outstrip the price of the cabinet.

Going around this bend, it’s well worth investing in a semi-circular articulated carousel married to the correct door type to get over the otherwise awkward grab.

Cabinets in the island here include cutouts for display and dining. A change in materials and downlighting updates hanging cabinets on the wet side of the rear left wall, Pogenpohl.

Islands can take shallow 30cm deep base cabinets allowing for a cantilevered counter for a breakfast bar with stools and knee room set in the 30cm a full 60cm would have demanded. Enormous pantry cupboards are a darling right now, and little wonder, as floor to ceiling they can present as a character pillar in contrasting materials or can be neatly subsumed into your cabinet door and drawer choice. Again, budget for that pricey interior fit-out to micro-manage this precious servant.

BOXING CLEVER

Slender 30cm pull-outs with chrome shelving, are fantastic for dry goods and cans and can be counter height or taken right to shoulder height.

Using a sliver of space they make an elegant conjunction between drawers and cupboards.

Where you might put a set of 30cm doors over 60cm, consider one open base unit with chunky shelf to store attractive ware or counter appliances you use regularly. On the wall, these cubbies can be set with plate racks and other means of division.

In unit organisation is infinite with possibilities, and don’t discount balancing open storage against blind. Vertical partitions set in an open cupboard in a fitted run can take a culinary library of flat pans, cutting boards and more.

Long open boxes hung underneath wall cabinets are orderly and attractive, and can be supplied in glass, wood or matching materials to the cabinets. Under-cabinet lighting can make all the difference here.

Look into tambours and flip-up doors up-n’-overs for upper cabinetry. Soft-close? Deftly prevents us smashing the doors against those ABS edges. To keep the doors smudge-free, opt for top or side edge recessed pulls — a slick standard for 2021.